The Teleological ArgumentBooklet 1

The argument from design, known as the Teleological Argument, suggests that the world displays elements of design, with things being adapted towards some overall end or purpose (telos in Greek). Such design suggests that the world is the work of a designer – God. The design argument is an a posteriori argument because it is based on external evidence. ‘With such signs of forethought in the design of living creatures, can you doubt they are the work of choice or design?’ Socrates

Specification content AO1 The teleological argument based on evidence of order, design and purpose as originated by

Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas Developments of the argument, including Paley (watchmaker analogy) and the anthropic and

aesthetic principles Arguments against the teleological argument, including reference to Hume, Kant and the

challenges presented by natural selection and the problem of evil

Issues AO2 How strong is the teleological argument in proving the existence of God? How persuasive is the teleological argument? Whether the challenge of the counter arguments make the teleological argument

ineffective Does the evidence from science support or discredit the teleological argument?

Key Philosophers

PlatoAristotleAquinasPaley (1743-1805)Swinburne (1934 -)Darwin (18-9-82)Tennant ((1866-1957)Hume (1711-76)John Stuart Mill (1806-73) Dawkins

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In what sense does the universe show signs of order?

1. Key terms

A posteriori

Telos

Qua

Analogy

Anthropic

Aesthetic

Probabilities

Epicurean hypothesis

What you will need

Detailed notes on all aspects of the design argument from a variety of sources A summary of the challenges (prioritised) A summary of the strengths (prioritised) Detailed notes on the responses to the challenges

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What can they do?

What can an ant do? What can a microchip do?

2. Why might this give some people reasons to believe in a designer (God)?

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IntroductionTeleological arguments are often referred to as arguments from design, because they draw attention to the appearance of design in the universe as evidence for the existence of a designer – God.The Teleological Argument claims that there is a variety of features which suggest that the universe has a designer:

• Order- regularities in the behaviour of objects and laws in the universe.

• Benefit- the universe provides all that is necessary for life and more. The presence of beauty, for example, appears to be beneficial without being necessary.

• Purpose- objects within the universe appear to be working towards an end or purpose. Indeed, the universe as a whole may be working towards an ultimate purpose.

• Suitability for human life- the order exhibited by the universe provides the ideal environment for human life to exist and to flourish

The connection between all of the above bullet points is the unlikelihood of them occurring by chance.More key facts about the Teleological Arguments

• They are a posteriori arguments because they are ______________________________________

• They are inductive arguments as it cannot conclusively __________________________________

• There is evidence of design in the world but we cannot prove that it is God conclusively.

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The origins of the teleological argument

The ancient Greek philosophers were impressed with the order that is found in the cosmos, and many of them ascribed that order to the work of an intelligent mind who fashioned the universe. Plato’s Academy focused on the study of astronomy because, Plato believed, it was the science that would awaken man to his divine destiny. According to Plato, there are two things that “lead men to believe in the Gods”: the argument based on the soul, and the argument “from the order of the motion of the stars, and of all things under the dominion of the mind which ordered the universe.”

Plato used both of these arguments to challenge atheism and concluded that there must be a “best soul” who is the “maker and father of all,” the “King” who ordered the primordial chaos into the rational cosmos we observe today.

Plato proposed the existence of a "demiurge" of supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the cosmos in his work Timaeus. For Plato, the demiurge lacked the supernatural ability to create ex nihilo or out of nothing, the demiurge was able only to organize. Plato's teleological perspective is also built upon the analysis of a priori order and structure in the world that he had already presented in The Republic.

Aristotle, too, was struck with wonder by the night sky of ancient Greece. Philosophy, he said, begins with this sense of wonder about the world:

‘For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophise; they wondered originally at the obvious difficulties, then advanced little by little and stated difficulties about greater matters, e.g. about the phenomena of the moon and those of the sun, and bout the stars and about the genesis of the universe.

Aristotle concluded that the cause was divine intelligence. He imagined the impact that the sight of the world would have on a race of men who had lived underground and never beheld the sky:

‘When thus they would suddenly gain sight of the earth, seas, and the sky; when they should come to know the grandeur of the clouds and the might of the winds; when they should behold the sun and should learn its grandeur and beauty as well as its power to cause the day by shedding light over the sky; and again, when the night had darkened the lands and they should behold the whole of the sky spangled and adorned with stars; and when they should see the changing lights of the moon as it waxes and wanes, and the risings and settings of all these celestial bodies, their courses fixed and changeless throughout all eternity–when they should behold all these things, most certainly they would have judged both that there exist gods and that all these marvellous works are the handiwork of the gods.’

Aristotle also developed the idea of a creator of the cosmos, often referred to as the "Prime Mover" in his work Metaphysics. Aristotle's views have very strong aspects of a teleological argument, specifically that of a prime mover, who (so to speak) looks ahead in setting the cosmos into motion. Indeed, Aristotle argued that all nature reflects inherent purposiveness and direction.

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The Roman thinker, Cicero, also offered a form of the argument in De Natura Deorum: ‘What could be more clear or obvious when we look up to the sky and contemplate the heavens, than there is some divinity or intelligence.’

3. TimelineRead the information above, the textbook and internet research

Start a timeline for the development of the teleological argument You will be adding to this with more recent versions of the argument.

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Plato

St Thomas AquinasSt. Thomas Aquinas was an important theologian and philosopher whose work on the nature and existence of God and his arguments for a moral code based on the ‘natural law’ God has instilled in the universe have formed the central teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. He sought to bring faith and reason together in order to develop the place of theology in the world.

The Christian argument from design finds its origins in Aquinas’ Summa Theologica and is the fifth of his five ways of proving the existence of God.

Aquinas’ argument can be explained as follows: “The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result.

Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is directed by the archer.

Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.”

Aquinas argued from design qua regularity. He saw the overall order in the world as proof of a designer: ‘this being we call God.’

Aquinas stated that everything works together to achieve order, despite the fact that inanimate objects have no mind or rational powers to achieve this.

Aquinas explained his point by using the example of an arrow, saying that for an arrow to reach its destination it must be directed first of all by the archer. In the same way, ‘natural bodies’ seem to act in a regular fashion to reach a specific purpose. As they, like the arrow, are not able to direct themselves, there must be a God doing the directing.

Aquinas’ argument is mainly an argument from design. As you can see, he refers to the existence of design without really proving that design exists. He is mainly interested in proving that God put the design there. We can perhaps assume that Aquinas thought the evidence for design was too overwhelming to have to demonstrate.

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Speak for yourselves!

The Teleological Argument: Aquinas’ Fifth Way

4. Intelligence, Summa Theologica, Aristotle, God, a posteriori, five, an arrow, qua regularity, ‘knowledge and intelligence’

Aquinas believed that the natural world provided a lot of evidence for Gods Existence. He set out ____________ ways of proving Gods existence which he set out in his book ___________________ ___________________ . Aquinas was heavily influenced by the teachings of ____________________ which are evident in his work.Aquinas’s theory is __________________________ in that he believed that everything works to some order or other. His argument is also an a _____________________ one as it is based on external evidence.

The main point of Aquinas’ argument is that inanimate objects such as ____________________ are clearly not endowed with ‘_____________________ and _____________________’ so they could not have ordered themselves. Eg, the sun, moon and earth did not work out for themselves what would be the best orbit for each of them! So something, or someone must have done this for them, and this must have been someone / something with ______________________. And for Aquinas, that being is ________________.

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‘We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best results.Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence: as the arrow is directed by the archer. Therefore, some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end, and this being we call God.’

6. Create a summary diagram of Aquinas’ teleological argument

7. Add Aquinas to your Teleological argument timeline

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5. To summarise:design, God, regularity, archer, arrow, regularityIn nature there is clearly evidence of order and _____________________. Anything which has a __________________ requires a designer or a ‘___________________ _______________’, which for Aquinas is __________________. This is the same as an ___________________ which only hits its target because it has been fired by an ______________________.

Design qua regularity:

Design in relation to order and regularity in the universe

8. Apply the Design Qua Regularity idea by comparing the design of the Universe/earth to a well presented garden.

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Design qua purpose: Design in relation to the ways in which the parts of the universe appear to fit together for some purpose

9. Apply the design Qua purpose idea to explain how we might compare the design of the universe/earth to that of a machine e.g. TV.

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Use pages 109 and 110 of Jordan

William Paley (1743-1805) formed his own version of the teleological argument in his book Natural Theology (1802). Why?

Paley uses the analogy of the watchmaker to explain his argument. He asks you to imagine a man walking across a heath. The man comes across a stone and a pocket watch and analyses both. His inspection of the stone leads him to conclude that it could have been there forever; there is nothing about the stone that leads the man to believe it lies on the heath for a particular reason.

However, imagine he were to inspect the pocket watch in the same way. Paley concludes that the man would not be able to make the same claim about this complicated, intricate, purposeful piece of machinery that he made about the stone.

To the contrary: all evidence would show that the watch had been designed for a purpose (to tell the time) and designed with the necessary regularity (the mechanisms inside) to meet its purpose.

Paley claimed that, in the same way, intricacies existed within nature that could not have come about by chance. These are just a couple of his examples:

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In the 20th century, Arthur Brown argued that the ozone layer was also evidence of design. The ozone layer absorbs harmful radiation that would otherwise harm or kill living things on Earth ‘the ozone layer is mighty proof of the creator’s forethought. Could anyone possibly attribute this device to a chance evolutionary process? A wall which prevents death to every living thing, just the right thickness and exactly the correct defence gives every evidence of a plan’

Paley compares the eye to a designed instrument such as the telescope, and concludes that ‘there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision, as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it.’

Paley was also fascinated by the rotation of the planets in our solar system and felt strongly that the existence of gravity and the laws of motion were even more evidence of a divine hand at work in the design of the universe.

The Teleological Argument: William Paley

Read the text book and booklet describing Paley’s argument and complete the following:

10. In your own words, summarise and explain Paley’s watch analogy. What do you think it is about the pattern in watch which points to a designing mind?

Use the following words in your answer:a. Complexb. Designerc. Purpose

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Think about what the purpose of a watch is, and who the designer is. Refer to these in your answer

11.Explain Paley’s examples from the natural world – the eye and the planets

12. Review knowledge. This part of Paley’s argument for the existence of God suggests design qua purpose. What does this mean?

13. Paley therefore, is suggesting that the universe has been designed to achieve a purpose just as the watch has been designed to fulfil a purpose. This can be illustrated further….

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a. Our eyes have been designed for the purpose of ______________________

b. Our ears have been designed for the purpose of ______________________

c. Our noses have been designed for the purpose of ______________________d. A birds wings have been designed for the purpose of ______________________

Such evidence, Paley argued, could only be the result of an ‘intelligent designing creator’ which for Paley was God. For Paley, these things have not come about by chance.

14.Review knowledge. Paley’s argument for the existence of God is also stresses design qua regularity. What does this mean?

15.What evidence did Paley use to demonstrate design qua regularity?

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. The Anthropic Principle is the ‘new’ version of the teleological argument, which accepts both Darwin’s evolutionary theory and the existence of God. It claims that it doesn’t have to be a standoff between science and religion. Anthropic comes from the Greek word anthropos meaning ‘man’.

The Anthropic Principle is associated with the work of Tennant and Polkinghorne (a nuclear physicist who became a priest).

• The universe has been structured in such a way to enable human life to appear and be sustained

• If it had been developed in a slightly different way then we wouldn’t be here

Physicists agree that if there had been very small changes in the amounts/balance of hydrogen and carbon (elements that make up the universe) then the universe couldn’t have supported any life form.

According to the anthropic principle:

• This complexity did not come about through chance or coincidence

• There must be a ‘life giving factor’ that lies at the centre of the whole design of the universe

• The universe was designed in such a way (by God) that the evolutionary process would create an environment in which intelligent life could exist

TennantIn his book Philosophical Theology (1930), Frederick R. Tennant elaborated on the teleological arguments that had been put forward in the past, with his anthropic principle (revolving around humankind). He believed that the best evidence of design could be seen in the way the universe supports intelligent human life. Believed in 3 types of natural evidence for a designer: S.E.A.

1. The way in which the world has provided a basis for sustaining life2. The world can be analysed in a rational manner3. The progress of evolution towards the emergence of intelligent life

Tennant believed that it would be possible to imagine a chaotic universe. However, the world is clearly not chaotic. But, there is a sense of order to it, so it was designed in a way to enable the process of evolution to create intelligent life. Thus, life is either, the culmination of God’s plan, or at least a stage in God’s plan for the living world.Tennant’s aesthetic principle

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He developed the anthropic principle to include the aesthetic principle. Here, Tennant argued that nothing seen in Darwin’s theory of evolution can explain why humans feel a love and appreciation of art, music, literature and other beautiful things. He argued that, since these characteristics do not aid us in survival in any way, natural selection cannot account for their existence. So, why do we hold this ability to appreciate beauty? Tennant believed that this capacity for joy was put in us by our designer-God.

‘Nature is not just beautiful in places; it is saturated with beauty – on the telescopic and microscopic scale. Our scientific knowledge brings us no nearer to understanding the beauty of music. From an intelligibility point of view, beauty seems to be superfluous and to have little survival value . . .’ F.R. Tennant, Philosophical Theology, 1930

Another view

• Peacocke describes a position which is referred to as ‘front-loading’

• He suggests that evolution is entirely consistent with a theistic God, a God who exists throughout all time, sets initial conditions and natural laws and knows what the result will be

• According to Peacocke, Darwinism is not an enemy of religion, but a friend!

• Hence, the title of his book: ‘The Disguised Friend’

16.Recall - Cover up your notes and write down five points that you remember about Tennant’s anthropic principle

Review –check that you have used the words:sustain, evolution, intelligent life, ‘life giving factor’

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Prof Polkinghorne

Polkinghorne uses the anthropic principle to support his belief that chance alone is an unlikely theory to explain why the exact conditions occurred in the universe to develop intelligent life. Polkinghorne considers Dawkins and his supporters to have missed the point that all that was required for life was available in our universe, and this could only have been the result of a designer (creator), but the creator of that universe has stood back and given creation the freedom to be itself.

‘To get to the point of the anthropic principle, just think about the stars. A fruitful universe has to have exactly the right sort of stars. A universe exactly the same as ours except that in it gravity was three times stronger, would have been boring and sterile in its history because its stars would have burnt themselves out in a few million years, long before any life could get going on an encircling planet.

The second role the stars have to perform is to produce the raw materials of life in their nuclear furnaces. The chemistry of life is the chemistry of carbon (since all life on earth depends on it) and there is only one place in the whole universe where carbon can be made, namely inside stars.

We are all made of stardust. Once again, this delicately balanced chain of reactions is only possible because the laws of nuclear physics are just the way they are and no other.

So, is all this just our luck, or is there a reason why things are so finely-tuned to the possibility of life? I would find it extremely intellectually lazy just to say that’s the way it is and that’s that.

My belief in creation makes all this intelligible for me. Our fruitful universe is the way it is because it is not just ‘any old world’, but it is a creation that has been endowed by its Creator with just those laws of nature that have enabled it to have so fertile a history.

Another contributor to the anthropic principle – Richard Swinburne

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17.What evidence does Polkinghorne use to support his viewpoint?

Richard SwinburneRichard Swinburne states that the complexity of the universe makes it difficult to believe that there is not a designer at work. He has accepted the anthropic principle, noting that even though the world could just as easily have become chaotic following the Big Bang, the fact that it has not points to an external designing or ordering force.

Swinburne uses a fine tuning argument, which states that the earth is too finely tuned to be like this as a result of random chance. Science can explain the fine tuning- that scientific laws work well together, that certain genetic mutations have worked in humankind’s favour etc. What science cannot explain is why all these occurrences should have coordinated themselves over long periods of time to work in our favour.

Swinburne says that science can only use scientific and natural laws to explain phenomena. This scientific explanation cannot extend to explaining the laws themselves, instead it is understood that they are ‘brute fact’, in other words, they just are.

Swinburne proposes a personal explanation of the scientific laws. That is, we should understand the existence of scientific laws in terms of a purpose which has been put in place for them. This purpose can be best explained by the existence of an omnipotent being.

Ockham’s razor famously states that all things being equal, the simplest answer is probably the best answer. Swinburne argues that the existence of a designer-creator being is the best, simplest answer to the temporal order (regularities of succession) which exist throughout space, throughout all time.

He argues that it is far simpler than to explain scientific laws as brute fact or random chance.

Inference to the best explanation

Swinburne argues that, given all the evidence available to us, we can infer (using inductive reasoning) that the best explanation is the existence of God.

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They call my work a “modern teleological argument” probably because I accept modern scientific research.

Swinburne’s argument:

1. Swinburne’s main form of the TA is his argument from Temporal Order. By temporal order [TO], he means the order we see in the laws of nature. Swinburne argues that whereas nature might have been chaotic, in fact all of nature obeys strict laws. The most probable explanation for this is that nature was designed in this way.

2. As a backup to this argument, Swinburne adds an argument from Spatial Order. By spatial order [SO], he means machine-like complexity. All living things have a machine-like complexity, so much so that humans themselves have evolved to be able to make machines. In fact, by looking at ourselves, we can see how God designed the universe: not only has nature been designed to work through strict scientific laws, it has been designed to produce intelligent beings like ourselves, who in fact operate as machine-making machines.

If we ask, ‘What is the most probable explanation of the temporal and spatial order in the world?’ there are only two kinds of answer we can rationally give: either the universe somehow contains an unthinking principle of order, or TO and SO are the result of the purposes of an intelligent creator. The latter begs fewer questions than the former, so it is more probable that God designed the universe.

18.Add the Anthropic Principle, Aesthetic Principle and Swinburne to your Teleological Argument timeline.

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Intelligent design

19. Stretch and challenge task

Read pages 104 and 105 of the AQA Jordan textbook.

1. Explain the theory of intelligent design.2. How can this be seen as a development of the teleological argument?3. Can you think of any problems with it?

Why ‘scientific’ creationism denies the evidence of evolution and believes God is the designer

Noah’s floodThe occurrence of the worldwide flood (Noah’s flood) destroyed most animal and plant life and greatly affected the processes operating on earth. The water resulted in weathering and made rocks appear older than they actually were.

Carbon datingCarbon dating has been discovered to be incorrect; for example, the ‘evolutionary’ history of the horse has been proven to be flawed and so has the belief that humans descend from apes.

Evolutionary historyScientists already accept that much of evolutionary history has been discovered to be incorrect and it is believed that, eventually, all such ‘histories’ will be proved wrong. For example, an idea called biogenetic law was used as evidence for the theory of evolution. This hypothesis stated that during its development in the womb, the human embryo retraces its evolutionary history – that it has gill slits like a fish, and a tail like a monkey. Modern biology now rejects this theory.

Fossil recordsFossil records have never supported the theory of evolution. Even Darwin himself was concerned about what he referred to as ‘imperfection of the geological records’. A fossil has yet to be discovered that demonstrates a species in transition, even though evolutionists have been looking for one for 130 years.

Also, mistakes have been made with the evidence that is found, as was made with ‘Lucy’. Lucy is yet another evolutionary fable, and an example of the inevitable circular reasoning behind evolutionary theory. Lucy had nothing to do with human origins, as had initially been believed, but was simply an extinct primate – an australopithecine. There is already evidence which shows that humans appeared in the fossil record before the australopithecines, suggesting that humans and australopithecines lived as contemporaries throughout the australopithecine history, and therefore that Lucy could not be a hominoid.

The case for the australopithecines as human ancestors has been based on three evolutionist claims that:

they were relatively big brained they were bipedal they appear in the fossil record at the relevant time

In reality, the fossil record shows us that the australopithecines do not appear at the relevant time; they are far too recent. Although brain organisation is more important than brain size, the significant gap between the cranial capacities of the largest australopithecine and the smallest human has not been bridged. There is no smooth transition from non-human to human fossils in this regard.

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Teleological Argument Past Questions

May 15 Examine the TA with reference to order, design and purpose. Mark scheme not published

May 14 Explain the main challenges to the TA for the existence of God – see mark scheme for May 12

Jan 14 Explain how existence of God may be proved by TA

May 13 Examine the TA with ref to Aquinas, Paley, anthropic and aesthetic principle

Jan 13 Explain TA attempt to prove God is designer of universe

May 12 Examine arguments against TA for existence of God

Jan 12 Examine how TA for God has developed

May 11 – Examine how TA attempts to prove existence of God

Jan 11 –Explain TA with ref to Aquinas, Paley and anthropic principle

June 2013 Examine the teleological argument with reference to Aquinas, Paley and the anthropic and aesthetic principles.

Candidates should examine the argument and make reference to the following: Aquinas’ Fifth way ‘From the governance of the world’; Paley’s Watch analogy; Observation of natural phenomena - structured of human eye (Paley), detail of a thumb (Newton), etc. Anthropic principle (cosmos developed for intelligent life) and Aesthetic Principle (appreciation of beauty not necessary for survival, therefore natural selection not only process governing behaviour/survival). Candidates may also make reference to Plato (order and structure of universe) and Aristotle (purpose and design) as well as modern arguments arising from ‘intelligent design’ including irreducible complexity, etc. [A01 30]

Q.2 (b) ‘Modern science proves that Paley’s teleological argument is wrong.’ Assess this view. Candidates are likely to include some or all of the following, but other relevant points will be credited:

Ineffective

Paley’s unsound analogy. Designing source not necessarily God of Classical Theism. Weight of scientific evidence from physics. Biology and cosmology against divine design. Discrediting of intelligent design arguments from contemporary scientific community, inductive arguments do not point to certainties, etc.

Effective

Based on observation of apparent design, order and purpose in the universe ( a posteriori). Mitchell and Swinburne use the teleological argument as part of cumulative proof. Swinburne’s probability argument ( universe so complex design more probable than random), etc.[A02 15]

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Jan 2013 Explain how the teleological argument attempts to prove that God is the designer of the universe. [30 AO1]

Candidates should focus their answer specifically on how the argument relates to ‘design’ and may make reference to the following: Aquinas’ Fifth way ‘from the governance of the world’ including reference to appropriate analogies (archer/arrow/target, etc.); Paley’s Watch analogy; Observation of (Newton), etc. Anthropic principle (cosmos designed to develop specifically for intelligent life) and Aesthetic argument (appreciation of beauty not necessary for survival, therefore natural selection not only process governing behaviour/survival but designed for appreciation, etc.), Modern arguments arising from ‘intelligent design’ including irreducible complexity, etc. may be referred to but are not essential for maximum level.

(b) ‘The teleological argument for God’s existence is completely convincing.’ [15 AO2]Assess this view.

Completely convincing:

Based on observation of apparent design, order and purpose in the universe (a posterior – therefore uses a scientific method); Scientific theories are often in need of updating/proved false – therefore scientific evidence against the theological argument not devastating critique, contemporary scientists (e.g. Brown, Polkinghorne, Tennant, P. Davies, et al.) support design concept, etc.

Not completely convincing:

Arguments against design from science (including reference to Darwin and Dawkins); alternative explanation of evolution natural selection; design only apparent order and result not evidence of intention; ‘God of gaps; rather than empirical evidential claims; Natural selection explains problem of evil, (i.e. random suffering, animal suffering, etc.) therefore more acceptable alternative to divine ‘intelligent’ design theories, etc.

June 2012 Examine arguments against TA for existence of God

Arguments against design from science – including reference to Darwin and Dawkins; the existence of evil (e.g. random, purposeless suffering) design defects in natural world (e.g. natural disasters, food chain) as evidence against benevolently designed world; the arguments of Hume (team of gods, apprentice god, analogy of machine unsound, etc.) Kant's argument that design only apparent – order and result not evidence of intention, etc. [15 AO2]

(b) Strong Based on observation of apparent design, order and purpose in the universe (a posterior). Mitchell and Swinburne use of the teleological argument as part of cumulative proof; Swinburne's probability argument (universe so complex design more probable than random). Strength of anthropic principle and 'hairline conditions' necessary for intelligent life strongly support concept of design, etc.

Not strong Paley's unsound analogy; designing source not necessarily God of Classical Theism; weight of scientific evidence from physics; biology and cosmology against divine design; discrediting of intelligent design arguments from contemporary scientific community, etc. [30 AO1]

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Jan 2012 Examine how TA for God has developed

Candidates should trace developments of the argument and may make reference to the following: Plato (order and structure of universe) and Aristotle (purpose and design) classical Aquinas' Fifth way 'From the governance of the world'; Paley's Watch analogy; Observation of natural phenomena ─structure of human eye (Paley) detail of a thumbprint (Newton) etc. Anthropic principle (cosmos developed for intelligent life) and Aesthetic argument (appreciation of beauty not necessary for survival, therefore, natural selection not only process governing behaviour/survival). modern arguments arising from 'intelligent design' including irreducible complexity, etc. AO1 [30]

(b) Science Supports

Based on observation of apparent design, order and purpose in the universe (a posterior ─ therefore uses a scientific method). Scientific theories are often in need of updating/proved false ─ therefore, scientific evidence against the teleological argument not devastating critique, contemporary scientists (e.g. Polkinghorne, P. Davies, et al) support design concept, etc.

Does not support

Arguments against design from science ─ including reference to Darwin and Dawkins; alternative explanation of evolutionary natural selection; design only apparent ─ order and result not evidence of intention; 'god of gaps' rather than empirical evidential claims. Natural selection explains problem of evil (i.e. random suffering, animal suffering, etc) therefore, more acceptable alternative to divine 'intelligent' design theories, etc. AO2 15

May 2011 Examine how the TA attempts to prove existence of God

Aquinas' Fifth way 'From the governance of the world'; Paley's Watch analogy; Observation of natural phenomena- structure of human eye (Paley), detail of a thumbprint (Newton), etc. Anthropic principle (cosmos developed for intelligent life) and Aesthetic argument (appreciation of beauty not necessary for survival, therefore natural selection not only process governing behaviour/survival), Modern arguments arising from 'intelligent design' including irreducible complexity, etc. AO1 30

(b) Persuasive: Based on observation of apparent design, order and purpose in the universe (a posteriori); Mitchell and Swinburne use the teleological argument as part of cumulative proof; Swinburne's probability argument (universe so complex design more probable than random), etc.

Not Persuasive: Paley's unsound analogy as humanity and nature (organic) dissimilar to machine (mechanical); design defects in natural world (e.g. natural disasters, food chain), existence of evil vs. design (e.g. random purposeless suffering); alternative explanation of evolutionary natural selection; design only apparent - order and result not evidence of intention; creative source not necessarily God of Classical Theism - could be teams of gods, apprentice god (Hume), etc. AO2 15

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Jan 2011 Explain TA with ref to Aquinas, Paley and anthropic principle

Aquinas’ Fifth way ‘From the governance of the world’; Paley’s Watch analogy; Observation of natural phenomena – structure of human eye (Paley), detail of a thumbprint (Newton), etc. Anthropic principle (cosmos developed for intelligent life) and Aesthetic argument (appreciation of beauty not necessary for survival, therefore natural selection not only process governing behaviour survival), etc. Max Level 4 for a general answer on teleological. Max Level 6 if any elements demanded in question is lacking. [AO1 30]

(b) Fails to prove God:

Paley’s unsound analogy; designing source not necessarily God of Classical Theism; weight of scientific evidence from physics; biology and cosmology against divine design; discrediting of intelligent design arguments from contemporary scientific community, etc.

Does not fail:

Based on observation of apparent design, order and purpose in the universe (a posteriori); Mitchell and Swinburne use the teleological argument as part of cumulative proof; Swinburne’s probability argument (universe so complex design more probable than random), etc. [AO2 15]

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Exam prep tasks – complete a brief summary plan

a) Explain the main features of the design argument (30)

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Main features